Mmiller2001

Sorry, I posted in the wrong place. Sorry bud. Ignore the light stuff. Try dropping your light intensity. Give it 3 weeks and see what happens. Also, weekly water changes with gravel vacuuming.

Can you post all the tanks parameters? Include GH and KH. How many gallons is the tank and how much Easy Green are you dosing?

Don't get a Fluval, over priced and poor spectrum. You would be better off with a Finnex ALC and if you have a higher budget, look at Chihiros WRGB2.

Pearl Weed, Val, dwarf Sag and hands down Hygrophila Polysperma. I doubt Co Op sells Hygrophila Polysperma, but don't sell yourself short. Google it, amazing stem plant that grows exceptionally well in non CO2 tanks.

Zero reason to be using root tabs with that soil. Zero reason to use them at all, but that's just me. As @Patrick_G stated, start some big water changes and dose lean with Easy Green. And plant more. Look to have the tank 70% planted.

The more you are willing to do is best. Try for once a week, but every 2 weeks is okay too. Just adjust your dosing accordingly. I've been front loading my nutrients recently, and it's working really well. Basically, you dose incoming water to the amounts you want the tank to be. It simplifies dosing just a bit and you don't have to remember to dose so often. 70% planted seems to be a pretty common belief. I'd start there.

Okay, reduce to 3 pumps and do 2x50% water changes over 2 days. Include gravel vacuuming when doing the water changes. You want to reduce the organics in the tank and have around 20ppm NO3 from actual fertilizer. 1x50% water change=20ishppm NO3 2ndx50% water change=10ish ppm NO3 10ish ppm tank + 3 pumps=18ish ppm NO3 If you can, quadruple your plant load. Under planting is probably the most common reason new people to the hobby have trouble. Use plants like Pearl Weed, Hygrophila Polysperma, Val and dwarf Sag. I can't recommend Hygrophila Polysperma enough, it's a gorgeous plant and is one of a few stems that preform very well in non CO2 tanks. Just get it, trust me! I would keep your light to 8 hours, with no siesta. What kind of light is it?

Are the >40ppm Nitrates before or after your water change? How many pumps of Thrive are you putting into the tank?

I wouldn't buy anything other than Eheim.

That's for 10 gallons. Or did I read it wrong?

I would push all those plants to the back if you want to try a carpet. Without CO2, I would use Pearl Weed and mow it often to simulate a carpet effect.

Okay, that's good. All those fish enjoy lower pH, perfect! Plants love low KH too! Lower KH to around 3 or 4dKH-There are several ways to do this, but the easiest way is to cut your source water with Distilled water. Then I would grab some Seachem Equilibrium, that will boost your GH back up as 5dGH is a good spot to be. Equilibrium also adds Fe and K, both of which Easy Green is low on. Let's assume after substrate and aqua scape, that your tank is 50 gallons. It's probably lower, but for this example, let's use 50. You use 10 to 12 pumps per week, let's just use 10 pumps here. That's only 6ppm NO3, .324ppm P, 4ppm K and .068Fe(as Proxy). That is very low. Personally, I would double what you are dosing and look to boost K and Fe via Equilibrium (after lowering KH). Do weekly water changes, around 25 to 30%, 50% is better but that's up to you. 50% will allow you to target nutrients easily as you can never exceed 2 times the amount you dose. So if you dose 12ppm NO3, did weekly 50% water changes you would never have more than 24ppm NO3. Keep in mind, that bio load adds NO3, but assume the water column is inert. FYI, for my non CO2 tanks, I dose 12ppm NO3, 2.2ppm PO4, 10ppm K and .5ppm Fe (proxy). All that is TL/DR, but honestly, lower KH, boost with Equilibrium, double your dosing and I bet you will see a big difference.

What type of fish do you keep?

What are your phosphates testing?

All AR's are challenging. I would recommend replacing it with S. Repens. If you want to keep at it, in a non CO2 tant, I would recommend an aquasoil as this tends to improve growth. You could also try a lean EI dosing strategy with increased light.

That's some type of rotala.

You are under dosing.

Thank you.

Thank you. All this stuff isn't that hard, just a bit intimidating until you've worked with the calculator a few times. Understanding and manipulating GH and KH is pretty much the important things. After those, just having enough of everything else is all you have to have.

For me, it's the darn green water. Die die die 😭.

There's a few extra steps to calculate a few numbers, but once you have dialed in the ratios, it's super easy. I like GLA fertilizer. Greenleafaquariums.com

I don't believe Easy Green adds Ca or Mg and water changes should be enough to replace either. We've all been there, before I discovered dry fertilizers, I darn near bought everything as well!

Thank you. I want to push my light higher but every time I do I run into problems. Hopefully, this takes care of things!

I just use an API kit as well, and they are good enough. I build my water with Mg and Ca and those test kits reflect the dGH I built to. The Almond leaves and such can reduce GH, but it takes such a long time that I can't consider them effective. They are great for adding tannins though. Shrimp love eating them as well. If you really want to know the ratio of Ca to Mg, you would need to purchase those test kits. But honestly, unless you really want to get into numbers, I would forgo buying those kits. For me, I trust my Ca Mg dosing and don't test them.

Installed a new toy today. UV sterilizer, hooks right on to the tank and connects to my Eheim Pro 4. Slight little modification to reduce water noise. Took 10 minutes to install.